This Year
This year I’ve worn my bra a lot less and danced around bonfires a lot more.
This year I broke my own heart to free my own soul.
This year I fell sobbing on my face 100 times and was yanked to my feet by the goddess 100 times more.
This year I left a home I’d just moved into and a man I still loved to keep a promise to Laughing Rainbow, a little girl I swear to never abandon again.
This year I rescued the parts of myself tied down and gagged in the deep dungeon–the bad girl, the wild child, the bitch, the slut and the whore, the silenced, the tamed, the shunned, the blamed, the one who was too much, the one who always wanted more.
This year I’ve moved five times and packed up everything into storage that doesn’t fit in my car.
This year I’ve torn through forests with brambles in my hair, collected rocks, sticks and shells, polar-plunged into frozen rivers, bays, and oceans, and stripped down for skinny dipping with a fabulous gay man in a heated swimming pool.
This year I’ve fallen in love with my own naked body—instead of a broken vessel to be disguised, reshaped, and hidden, a beautiful and bodacious goddamn gift of the goddess.
This year I fell madly deeply wholly in love with a mystical magical woman whom I can’t stop talking to or keep my hands off of.
This year I’ve started and abandoned projects my heart loved but my nervous system couldn’t handle.
This year I’ve turned my outward facing self back in and put my work on hold to face my shadows, and become whole again.
This year I’ve wrestled old and new addictions, all the swampy sticky dark parts crawling and stumbling towards the light.
This year I tore off my front bumper, got pulled for speeding, and drove down the highway with a gas nozzle hose flying out behind my car like a kite.
This year I prayed to the purifying fires of transformation when I got my first tattoo and had a burning rotten tooth extracted from my head.
This year I’ve been duct-taped together by the love of my friends and my mother, I’ve lost friends and family that ache like phantom limbs, I’ve shed too tight skins that were ripped off, mostly dead but still living.
This year I have played the role of the betrayer and the betrayed, the victim and the villain, the doer and the done-to, flashes of light, masks and shadows, all revealed and released.
This year I’ve walked through the burning Hellfires of stripping, people-pleasing, of disappointing others so I don’t disappoint myself.
This year I’ve created sacred spaces in nests and hovels and held ceremonies under every new and full moon.
This year I’ve worn my bra a lot less and danced around bonfires a lot more.
This year I’ve befriended witches, warlocks, shapeshifters, channelers, elementals, seraphim, and magicians. This year I’ve learned how to listen to the trees and I’m practicing obedience to my own intuition.
This is the year I met the Dragon.
WINTER WONDERLAND WORKSHOPS—JOIN ME!
Come write with me as we call in 2026: in-person or on zoom!
The Wolf Moon: An Alchemical Writing Journey
Time: Saturday, January 3, 1-4 pm EST (1 space left)
Location: IN-PERSON River Home in Varina, location to be shared upon registration
Sliding Scale: $144 crescent/$188 waxing/$222 full moon
Writing Recovery on Wednesday Afternoons
Time: 6 Wednesdays, Jan 14- Feb 18, 1-3 PM EST
Location: ZOOM
Sliding Scale: $188 accessible pricing/$255 community pricing
Thursday Morning Writing Fire: Uncover Your Story; Recover your Flame
Time: 6 Thursdays, Jan 15- Feb 19, 9:30-11:30 AM EST
Location: ZOOM
Sliding Scale: $188 accessible pricing/$255 community pricing
The Dangerous Old Woman
Time: Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 1:00 – 4:00 PM EST
Location: ZOOM
Sliding Scale: $44 crescent/$88 waxing/$122 full moon
Into the Heart Podcast!
Please enjoy my interview with the beautiful and kind Amy D’Agrosa of Pathways to Purpose Coaching! Amy is a beautiful soul I was honored and happy to meet.
What are Valley’s students saying?
“What a divine, intuitively-led workshop; thank you Valley!” —Kate
“Valley is absolutely wonderful. This was my first experience & the entire experience helped me so much. Very inspiring!” —Susan
“Valley has yet again provided a safe place to write with inspiring and thoughtful feedback. Such a gift she has and shares!” —Marty
“Valley offers sensitive feedback to writers who come to her classes, always positive and supportive, whether you have been writing all your life or are just starting to explore this path to self-knowledge.”—Chaya
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